Rt Hon Charles Kennedy

General Election Address: Labour Running Scared

Charles Kennedy focuses on the Liberal Democrat policies that are attracting record support for the Liberal Democrat and have put Tony Blair on the back foot.

Now that we have reached the last 48 hours before polling day, it is clear that the story of this election is the record levels of support for the Liberal Democrats.

The Conservatives can't win this election - and quite frankly they don't deserve to.
This is not a problem of leadership or of personality.
What the Conservatives themselves have failed to recognise, year after year, leader after leader, is that they no longer represent the kind of society that people in Britain want.
They are the party of the past.
People remember how they ran health and education and have no intention of going back.
It doesn't matter who leads the Conservative party - they can't break out of their core vote and even that is slipping away.

Labour and Tony Blair are running scared of the Liberal Democrats.
He has suddenly realised how attractive the Liberal Democrat message is.
He has suddenly realised that it is Liberal Democrat policies to which voters are responding.

But it's too late for Tony Blair now.
It is Tony Blair's Government who imposed tuition fees and top up fees on students.
Liberal Democrat will scrap university tuition fees.

It is Tony Blair's Government who hand out derisory poverty pensions.
Liberal Democrats will raise pensions by £100 a month for the over 75s and end the discrimination against women in the pensions system about which Labour has nothing at all to say.

It is Tony Blair's Government which ties up our hospitals with targets which just pile problems on doctors and nurses.
It is the patients that end up suffering.
The Liberal Democrats will end the artificial targets and let doctors and nurses get on with the job.
And we will end the hidden waiting lists so that people get diagnosed and treated quickly and efficiently.

It is Tony Blair's Government who will waste billions on compulsory Identity Cards.
The Liberal Democrats will put 10,000 more police on the streets instead.

It is Tony Blair's Government who will waste billions on the Child Trust Fund.
The Liberal Democrats will put 21,000 new primary school teachers in the class room instead.

It is only the Liberal Democrats who stood up to Tony Blair over Iraq.
Only the Liberal Democrats who put the environment at the heart of all our thinking.
Only the Liberal Democrats who have a permanent solution to unfair and fundamentally flawed Council Tax.

Look at the Liberal Democrat record in power.
Liverpool, where we have been in power for 7 years, is now the 2nd safest city in the UK because Liberal Democrat action on crime is not just tough talk, but it is tough action, and effective action.

Liberal Democrats are effective because we mean what we say.
We are passionate about the young people crippled with debts for wanting to make their parents proud of them going to university and contribute to the wellbeing of our society in future.

We are angry about the pensioners condemned to live in poverty by inadequate pensions that often discriminate against them because they are women and leave them struggling to pay rising council tax bills with only limited fixed incomes

We demand that this country stands proud for what is right in the world and doesn't just succumb to the worrying foreign policies of George Bush

That's why more and more people are supporting the Liberal Democrats and preparing to elect more Liberal Democrat MPs.

It is time for a real alternative that offers real solutions to the real problems and stresses that people face in life.

That real alternative is the Liberal Democrats.
So if you value it, vote Liberal Democrat.
If you want to take a stand, vote Liberal Democrat.
For the real alternative, vote Liberal Democrat.

ENDS

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